Stir of Echoes Review

The film opens with a child talking directly to camera, talking to someone that, it`s obvious no-one else can see... the child is Jake (Zachary David Cope). His parents are Tom (Kevin Bacon) and Maggie (Kathryn Erbe) - and they live in a working class suburb of Chicago. Maggie`s sister Lisa (Illeana Douglas) has been taking classes in hypnotism, Tom is skeptical, but at a party one night he lets Lisa try to hypnotise him... and from that moment his mind is open to all sorts of visions, violent, horrific visions which begin to obsess him... he has to find an answer...This is a very OK supernatural thriller with none of the twists of The Sixth Sense, but very satisfying nevertheless... partly because writer/director David Koepp - basing his screenplay on a novel by Richard Matheson - has grounded the film in its milieu of working class Chicago - Bacon is a linesman, and part-time member of a band, he always thought he could be something better, but life is OK with a nice wife and child and another on the way. And the performances fit into that milieu - Bacon is very good as Tom and Kathryn Erbe particularly convincing as Maggie. Films dealing with the supernatural can be extremely silly, but Stir of Echoes avoids that quite skilfully. David`s comments:A very interesting supernatural thriller which has suffered from its accidental similarities to The Sixth Sense. Kevin Bacon is especially good as the working class guy who, after some amateur hypnosis, starts seeing disturbing visions of a murdered girl. Technically excellent and often genuinely creepy.